Outlook Summit: data sharing is the key to ESG compliance
More transparency and data sharing would be a boost for real estate, experts agreed at Real Asset Media’s Sustainability & Risk, Data & Artificial Intelligence roundtable which took place in London recently as part of the CEO Outlook Summit 2025.
“The lack of data puts a risk premium on real estate,” said James Halstead, CIO European value add real estate, BlackRock. “If we want to attract more capital, then we need to have more transparency. We’re big proponents of data, but we would like the industry to be a bit more grown up.”
The situation varies depending on the asset class. There is no publicly shared information on the student accommodation sector, for example, while the hospitality sector is more open: it has set rules of engagement but has understood that collaboration is in the collective interest.
“We’ve gone through a period of isolationism, but we are paying the price for that,” said Julia Fitzsimmons, chair, Lodestar. “It would be easier and cheaper to do things together in the retail sector. You really don’t have to sacrifice competitiveness to collaborate.”
In logistics, tenants seem to be more willing to share data with landlords openly, but the residential sector is still way behind.
“The industry hasn’t really moved on in 20 years,” said Paul Gibson, chief investment officer – EMEA direct real estate strategies, CBRE Investment Management. “We want to deliver returns to our investors, so the more data we can break down the more we can get ahead of the game, the more we can achieve that return.”
Some data are subjective, like the valuation of an asset. There’s also a risk of chasing data for data’s sake and focusing on the wrong thing.
“There’s a danger of analysis paralysis or of going down rabbit holes, so it is important to keep that tendency in check and focus on simple, reliable, useful data,” said Halstead.
Data and information sharing has not yet become the norm across asset classes. Yet reliable data, among other things, are crucial to achieve and demonstrate ESG-compliance.
“We need more transparency, and we need to process data into useful information,” said Paul Wessels, founder, Blue Module. “Investors want to acquire ESG-compliant assets, but they need proof. ESG is becoming part of a professional valuer’s toolkit.”
Financial models are changing to take into account energy efficiency, sustainable features, social impact and other ESG aspects. This means reliable and verified data are essential to guarantee an asset’s sustainability credentials, and standards and benchmarks are needed in order to make accurate comparisons between assets.
The push for quality data and quality assets will only increase in the future, said Wessels: “There is no doubt that the gap between good and bad properties will only get wider.”
